A spokesperson for Egypt's Interior Ministry said the gunmen were travelling in three vehicles.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has called a meeting of security officials in the wake of the latest attack on the Coptic Orthodox Church – Egypt's largest Christian church and the Middle East's biggest Christian community.

Dozens of checkpoints and have been set up and police are patrolling the area as the hunt for the perpetrators begins.

It is the latest fatal attack on Copts in Egypt in the past few months, after more than 45 people were killed in a double suicide bombing in April, when terrorists attacked churches in Tanta and Alexandria on Palm Sunday.

Another 25 people, mainly women and children, were killed in December when a bomb exploded outside the main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombings, and warned more attacks would follow.

Although no group has yet claimed responsibility for the latest atrocity, the US Embassy & Consulate in Egypt yesterday warned of a a possible terrorist attack threatened by the Hassm group, a splinter cell of the Muslim Brotherhood.